Laughing to himself, Higli Pasha sat with the stem of a narghileh in his
mouth. His big shoulders kept time to the quivering of his fat stomach.
He was sitting in a small court-yard of Nahoum Pasha’s palace, waiting
for its owner to appear. Meanwhile he exercised a hilarious patience.
The years had changed him little since he had been sent on that
expedition against the southern tribes which followed hard on David’s
appointment to office. As David had expected, few of the traitorous
officers returned. Diaz had ignominiously died of the bite of a
tarantula before a blow had been struck, but Higli had gratefully
received a slight wound in the first encounter, which enabled him
to beat a safe retreat to Cairo. He alone of the chief of the old
conspirators was left. Achmet was still at the Place of Lepers, and the
old nest of traitors was scattered for ever.
Only Nahoum and Higli were left, and between these two there had never
been partnership or understanding. Nahoum was not the man to trust to
confederates, and Higli Pasha was too contemptible a coadjutor. Nahoum
had faith in no one save Mizraim the Chief Eunuch, but Mizraim alone was
better than a thousand; and he was secret--and terrible. Yet Higli had a
conviction that Nahoum’s alliance with David was a sham, and that David
would pay the price of misplaced confidence one day. More than once when
David’s plans had had a set-back, Higli had contrived a meeting with
Nahoum, to judge for himself the true position.
For his visit to-day he had invented a reason--a matter of finance; but
his real reason was concealed behind the malevolent merriment by which
he was now seized. So absorbed was he that he did not heed the approach
of another visitor down an angle of the court-yard. He was roused by a
voice.
“Well, what’s tickling you so, pasha?”
The voice was drawling, and quite gentle; but at the sound of it,
Higli’s laugh stopped short, and the muscles of his face contracted.
If there was one man of whom he had a wholesome fear--why, he could not
tell--it was this round-faced, abrupt, imperturbable American, Claridge
Pasha’s right-hand man. Legends of resourcefulness and bravery had
gathered round his name. “Who’s been stroking your chin with a feather,
pasha?” he continued, his eye piercing the other like a gimlet.
“It was an amusing tale I heard at Assiout, effendi,” was Higli’s
abashed and surly reply.
“Oh, at Assiout!” rejoined Lacey. “Yes, they tell funny stories at
Assiout. And when were you at Assiout, pasha?”
“Two days ago, effendi.”
“And so you thought you’d tell the funny little story to Nahoum as quick
as could be, eh? He likes funny stories, same as you--damn, nice, funny
little stories, eh?”
There was something chilly in Lacey’s voice now, which Higli did
not like; something much too menacing and contemptuous for a mere
man-of-all-work to the Inglesi. Higli bridled up, his eyes glared
sulkily.
“It is but my own business if I laugh or if I curse, effendi,” he
replied, his hand shaking a little on the stem of the narghileh.
“Precisely, my diaphanous polyandrist; but it isn’t quite your own
affair what you laugh at--not if I know it!”
“Does the effendi think I was laughing at him?”
“The effendi thinks not. The effendi knows that the descendant of a
hundred tigers was laughing at the funny little story, of how the two
cotton-mills that Claridge Pasha built were burned down all in one
night, and one of his steamers sent down the cataract at Assouan. A
knock-down blow for Claridge Pasha, eh? That’s all you thought of,
wasn’t it? And it doesn’t matter to you that the cotton-mills made
thousands better off, and started new industries in Egypt. No, it only
matters to you that Claridge Pasha loses half his fortune, and that you
think his feet are in the quicksands, and ‘ll be sucked in, to make an
Egyptian holiday. Anything to discredit him here, eh? I’m not sure what
else you know; but I’ll find out, my noble pasha, and if you’ve had
your hand in it--but no, you ain’t game-cock enough for that! But if
you were, if you had a hand in the making of your funny little story,
there’s a nutcracker that ‘d break the shell of that joke--”
He turned round quickly, seeing a shadow and hearing a movement. Nahoum
was but a few feet away. There was a bland smile on his face, a look of
innocence in his magnificent blue eye. As he met Lacey’s look, the smile
left his lips, a grave sympathy appeared to possess them, and he spoke
softly:
“I know the thing that burns thy heart, effendi, to whom be the flowers
of hope and the fruits of merit. It is even so, a great blow has fallen.
Two hours since I heard. I went at once to see Claridge Pasha, but found
him not. Does he know, think you?” he added sadly.
“May your heart never be harder than it is, pasha, and when I left the
Saadat an hour ago, he did not know. His messenger hadn’t a steamer
like Higli Pasha there. But he was coming to see you; and that’s why I’m
here. I’ve been brushing the flies off this sore on the hump of Egypt
while waiting.” He glanced with disdain at Higli.
A smile rose like liquid in the eye of Nahoum and subsided, then he
turned to Higli inquiringly.
“I have come on business, Excellency; the railway to Rosetta, and--”
“To-morrow--or the next day,” responded Nahoum irritably, and turned
again to Lacey.
As Higli’s huge frame disappeared through a gateway, Nahoum motioned
Lacey to a divan, and summoned a slave for cooling drinks. Lacey’s eyes
now watched him with an innocence nearly as childlike as his own. Lacey
well knew that here was a foe worthy of the best steel. That he was a
foe, and a malignant foe, he had no doubt whatever; he had settled the
point in his mind long ago; and two letters he had received from Lady
Eglington, in which she had said in so many words, “Watch Nahoum!”
had made him vigilant and intuitive. He knew, meanwhile, that he was
following the trail of a master-hunter who covered up his tracks. Lacey
was as certain as though he had the book of Nahoum’s mind open in his
hand, that David’s work had been torn down again--and this time with
dire effect--by this Armenian, whom David trusted like a brother. But
the black doors that closed on the truth on every side only made him
more determined to unlock them; and, when he faltered as to his own
powers, he trusted Mahommed Hassan, whose devotion to David had given
him eyes that pierced dark places.
“Surely the God of Israel has smitten Claridge Pasha sorely. My
heart will mourn to look upon his face. The day is insulting in its
brightness,” continued Nahoum with a sigh, his eyes bent upon Lacey,
dejection in his shoulders.
Lacey started. “The God of Israel!” How blasphemous it sounded from the
lips of Nahoum, Oriental of Orientals, Christian though he was also!
“I think, perhaps, you’ll get over it, pasha. Man is born to trouble,
and you’ve got a lot of courage. I guess you could see other people bear
a pile of suffering, and never flinch.”
Nahoum appeared not to notice the gibe. “It is a land of suffering,
effendi,” he sighed, “and one sees what one sees.”
“Have you any idea, any real sensible idea, how those cotton-mills got
afire?” Lacey’s eyes were fixed on Nahoum’s face.
The other met his gaze calmly. “Who can tell! An accident, perhaps,
or--”
“Or some one set the mills on fire in several places at once--they say
the buildings flamed out in every corner; and it was the only time in a
month they hadn’t been running night and day. Funny, isn’t it?”
“It looks like the work of an enemy, effendi.” Nahoum shook his head
gravely. “A fortune destroyed in an hour, as it were. But we shall get
the dog. We shall find him. There is no hole deep enough to hide him
from us.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go looking in holes for him, pasha.
“He isn’t any cave-dweller, that incendiary; he’s an artist--no palace
is too unlikely for him. No, I wouldn’t go poking in mud-huts to find
him.”
“Thou dost not think that Higli Pasha--” Nahoum seemed startled out
of equanimity by the thought. Lacey eyed him meditatively, and said
reflectively: “Say, you’re an artist, pasha. You are a guesser of the
first rank. But I’d guess again. Higli Pasha would have done it, if it
had ever occurred to him; and he’d had the pluck. But it didn’t, and he
hadn’t. What I can’t understand is that the artist that did it should
have done it before Claridge Pasha left for the Soudan. Here we were
just about to start; and if we’d got away south, the job would have done
more harm, and the Saadat would have been out of the way. No, I can’t
understand why the firebug didn’t let us get clean away; for if the
Saadat stays here, he’ll be where he can stop the underground mining.”
Nahoum’s self-control did not desert him, though he fully realised that
this man suspected him. On the surface Lacey was right. It would have
seemed better to let David go, and destroy his work afterwards, but he
had been moved by other considerations, and his design was deep. His
own emissaries were in the Soudan, announcing David’s determination to
abolish slavery, secretly stirring up feeling against him, preparing for
the final blow to be delivered, when he went again among the southern
tribes. He had waited and waited, and now the time was come. Had he,
Nahoum, not agreed with David that the time had come for the slave-trade
to go? Had he not encouraged him to take this bold step, in the sure
belief that it would overwhelm him, and bring him an ignominious death,
embittered by total failure of all he had tried to do?
For years he had secretly loosened the foundations of David’s work,
and the triumph of Oriental duplicity over Western civilisation and
integrity was sweet in his mouth. And now there was reason to believe
that, at last, Kaid was turning against the Inglesi. Everything would
come at once. If all that he had planned was successful, even this man
before him should aid in his master’s destruction.
“If it was all done by an enemy,” he said, in answer to Lacey, at last,
“would it all be reasoned out like that? Is hatred so logical? Dost
thou think Claridge Pasha will not go now? The troops are ready at
Wady-Halfa, everything is in order; the last load of equipment has gone.
Will not Claridge Pasha find the money somehow? I will do what I can. My
heart is moved to aid him.”
“Yes, you’d do what you could, pasha,” Lacey rejoined enigmatically,
“but whether it would set the Saadat on his expedition or not is a
question. But I guess, after all, he’s got to go. He willed it so.
People may try to stop him, and they may tear down what he does, but he
does at last what he starts to do, and no one can prevent him--not any
one. Yes, he’s going on this expedition; and he’ll have the money,
too.” There was a strange, abstracted look in his face, as though he saw
something which held him fascinated.
Presently, as if with an effort, he rose to his feet, took the red
fez from his head, and fanned himself with it for a moment. “Don’t you
forget it, pasha; the Saadat will win. He can’t be beaten, not in a
thousand years. Here he comes.”
Nahoum got to his feet, as David came quickly through the small gateway
of the court-yard, his head erect, his lips smiling, his eyes sweeping
the place. He came forward briskly to them. It was plain he had not
heard the evil news.
“Peace be to thee, Saadat, and may thy life be fenced about with
safety!” said Nahoum.
David laid a hand on Lacey’s arm and squeezed it, smiling at him with
such friendship that Lacey’s eyes moistened, and he turned his head
away.
There was a quiet elation in David’s look. “We are ready at last,” he
said, looking from one to the other. “Well, well,” he added, almost
boyishly, “has thee nothing to say, Nahoum?”
Nahoum turned his head away as though overcome. David’s face grew
instantly grave. He turned to Lacey. Never before had he seen Lacey’s
face with a look like this. He grasped Lacey’s arm. “What is it?” he
asked quietly. “What does thee want to say to me?”
But Lacey could not speak, and David turned again to Nahoum. “What is
there to say to me?” he asked. “Something has happened--what is it?...
Come, many things have happened before. This can be no worse. Do thee
speak,” he urged gently.
“Saadat,” said Nahoum, as though under the stress of feeling, “the
cotton-mills at Tashah and Mini are gone--burned to the ground.”
For a moment David looked at him without sight in his eyes, and his face
grew very pale. “Excellency, all in one night, the besom of destruction
was abroad,” he heard Nahoum say, as though from great depths below him.
He slowly turned his head to look at Lacey. “Is this true?” he asked at
last in an unsteady voice. Lacey could not speak, but inclined his head.
David’s figure seemed to shrink for a moment, his face had a withered
look, and his head fell forward in a mood of terrible dejection.
“Saadat! Oh, my God, Saadat, don’t take it so!” said Lacey brokenly, and
stepped between David and Nahoum. He could not bear that the stricken
face and figure should be seen by Nahoum, whom he believed to be
secretly gloating. “Saadat,” he said brokenly, “God has always been with
you; He hasn’t forgotten you now.
“The work of years,” David murmured, and seemed not to hear.
“When God permits, shall man despair?” interposed Nahoum, in a voice
that lingered on the words. Nahoum accomplished what Lacey had failed to
do. His voice had pierced to some remote corner in David’s nature, and
roused him. Was it that doubt, suspicion, had been wakened at last? Was
some sensitive nerve touched, that this Oriental should offer Christian
comfort to him in his need--to him who had seen the greater light? Or
was it that some unreality in the words struck a note which excited
a new and subconscious understanding? Perhaps it was a little of all
three. He did not stop to inquire. In crises such as that through which
he was passing, the mind and body act without reason, rather by the
primal instinct, the certain call of the things that were before reason
was.
“God is with the patient,” continued Nahoum; and Lacey set his teeth to
bear this insult to all things. But Nahoum accomplished what he had not
anticipated. David straightened himself up, and clasped his hands behind
him. By a supreme effort of the will he controlled himself, and the
colour came back faintly to his face. “God’s will be done,” he said, and
looked Nahoum calmly in the eyes. “It was no accident,” he added with
conviction. “It was an enemy of Egypt.” Suddenly the thing rushed over
him again, going through his veins like a poisonous ether, and clamping
his heart as with iron. “All to do over again!” he said brokenly, and
again he caught Lacey’s arm.
With an uncontrollable impulse Lacey took David’s hand in his own warm,
human grasp.
“Once I thought I lost everything in Mexico, Saadat, and I understand
what you feel. But all wasn’t lost in Mexico, as I found at last, and I
got something, too, that I didn’t put in. Say, let us go from here. God
is backing you, Saadat. Isn’t it all right--same as ever?”
David was himself again. “Thee is a good man,” he said, and through the
sadness of his eyes there stole a smile. “Let us go,” he said. Then he
added in a businesslike way: “To-morrow at seven, Nahoum. There is much
to do.”
He turned towards the gate with Lacey, where the horses waited. Mahommed
Hassan met them as they prepared to mount. He handed David a letter.
It was from Faith, and contained the news of Luke Claridge’s death.
Everything had come at once. He stumbled into the saddle with a moan.
“At last I have drawn blood,” said Nahoum to himself with grim
satisfaction, as they disappeared. “It is the beginning of the end. It
will crush him-I saw it in his eyes. God of Israel, I shall rule again
in Egypt!”